Resistance against RWE/Police Eviction of Parahraph 11

On Oct. 1st eviction of Paragraph 11 took place, a tree house build by a Guild of Traveling Carpenters as a community space for those blocking RWE coal in Hambach Forest. It became a true community during Monday resistance against Fossil Fools forces of repression and destruction that have been ravaging and destroying all forest occupations, tree houses and cutting 100s of trees for last 3 weeks plus in what has been the biggest police operation in the history of North Rhine – Westphalia.

With paragraph 11 being the last of over 30 tree houses destroyed in this 3rd of large waves of historic tree-top evictions in Hambi. First eviction took place in 2011 and at the time was the longest and most expensive in Federal Republic of Germany history(this time this record has been surpassed again) second occurred in 2014 with destruction of Monkey Town. With both previous waves of cops washing up on our green shores looking now like gentle breezes, however those actions were also complete clearing of all at the time tree houses in the forest. Those previous act of repression however only invigorated and amplified the resistance, multiplied exponentially the number of activists, ideas and treetop homes in the forest and generated public discussion of why such large resources in the time of economic austerity, ecological collapse and climate change are being spend to support and subsidize RWE’s toxic and climate killing opencast mining. Another dynamic that has also always been directly proportional to the level of repression has been solidarity which this time also became a weapon with hundreds coming to support, surround and fortify the surroundings of Paragraph11 beginning a week before and leading to the eviction, while thousands took part in demonstrations and actions world-wide to support the cause of saving and defending this unique and irreplaceable forest.

Beginning on Thursday police presence increased in the area and Friday road was made to the occupation with hundreds coming on both days and blocking the surrounding roads reclaiming the area under P11 and finally on Saturday and Sunday building large, all around barricade walls with crawl space inside preventing the barricades being picked up of moved by heavy equipment.

On monday the CO2ps were massing in the thousands around the forest and started coming unto the road in front of P11 around 8:00 and came into the forest and surrounded paragraph11 an hour later. The walls all around were the height of 2 meters and formed a 3 layered spiral, and at first the police just maintained the kettle around the activists inside of a fortified village protecting the Tree and its tree house in center. Then CO2ps started working together with RWE contractors who cut the barricades with chainsaws, until getting to the second layer of barricades that they begun to cut as well untill finally responding to urgent calls that people were inside and proceeded to take them apart by hand, this had to take place before the operation could move further and cops showed their frustration by being aggressive towards those who were pulled from the inside. Seeomg this frustration has almost become indicator that something was done right and someone did manage to get on their nerves, At that time on team of cops was loaded into a bucket of a bulldozer, while another team was breaking through the barricade on the others side with the help of RWE contractors. Before going in they were joined by additional police brigade. Who coming over the barricade in a raised bulldozer bucket sprayed those on top of barricade, who at the time holding signs and trying to appeal to them, with pepper spray. Grabbing and pushing down the blockaders some of the cops felt down the barricade face first while taking some of the activists down with them. The aggressive destruction took place next with cops not only grabbing, hitting and pulling down all who were not already sitting down under the tree and even took their agression on all the hanging tarps that were pulled down, ripped and cut and then on anything else such as any resisting pots, backpacks and jackets that got in their way which were kicked with great gusto. Different type of psychological repression then took place when cops surrounded approximately 50 people sitting down around the P11 Oak and stood over them menacingly for over one hour and 20 minutes. The cops inside were equally matched number-wise with the sitting blockaders but that must have not been enough to deal with this theoretic menace as the blockaders were not evicted until additional police brigade showed up and over 1oo additional cops started to forcefully remove those sitting and holding each other, stepping on them, sticking fingers directly in activists ears, and then dragging them in some caces by their legs with their torsos dragging on the ground. When all on the ground were removed the almost festive and celebrating our resistance atmosphere in Paragrap11 became more serious knowing that it would be the turn of the tree-sitters next. Still it took the cherry pick almost two more hours of clearing access roads, removing more of the remaining barricades. We watched from above this insanely fast pace of chainsaws crazy RWE conracors, havesters, bulldozers and loaders clearing the area below also with a certain amusement, amusement that a structures build with hammers and saws was requiring so much equipment, hundreds of cops and RWE workers being involved in such a large operation. Two live streams were taking place focusing on the police and RWE activity below. Two activists videographers were also present documenting the reality of Hambi evictions addressing the dilemma that so often the activists are filmed by police videography teams and mass media who spins the message from capitalist ideology perspective. The Paragraph11 like many of the previously evicted communities became an amazing group dynamic of comradeship, sharing of crazy glue and razors to sabotage finger print scanners, of attempting to save art, zines and books and flags from a place to which good byes were being said by giving each other hugs, updating each other on the situation below while sharing info on solidarity and actions coming for Hambi from all around the world. That was the bests support both political and psychological one car receive at a time like this.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 <3 <3

When the climbing teams and the SEK(SWAT) team were beginning to gather around the buckets of cherry pick below it was the sign that the “end” was coming, a bit of frenzy took place with all gathering their gear, backpacks and taking position in the trees and in the lock-ons, while sharing with others the objects and possession one did not need anymore. Time was also taken for taking this eviction solidarity photo:

When the assault on P11 took place it was a bit of suprise as first went into action the 50 meter crane with 3 SWAT cops suspended from its half a ton hook. Dropping down on the treehouse from high above looking dangling together like grapes. They had quite a problem getting through the crown of the oak and one of them seemed to get stuck for awhile and only one descended with two staying “on the hook” above the tree, perhaps just in case we started throwing anything down on their colegues so they could start shooting from a higher vintage point.

When the SEC was on the Roof of P11 four cherry pick went up 2 from each side to p11 like industrialist dragons extending their longs neck at us and spitting out repressive microbes of repression and climate disaster capitalism. Those smoking activists at that time were nervously rolling their last cigarettes and smoking them with relief. Stress was felt for a good reason as with this eviction employing SWAT teams instead of exclusively, climbing and technical cops it has been more violent and brutal than any before. With the exception of the interactions of activists with the RWE private security who have attacked and caused long list of injuries to Hambi activists. So as the local NRW police is directed by a State Police Chief Herbert Reul, a Rhine Energie (RWE subsidary company) advisor is becoming more and more an RWE extractionist corporate security force pushing the whole Planet more and more towards Climate oblivion it is only logical that illusion of human rights protections is breaking down more and more and permanent state of emergency is imposed such as Hambi’s “Danger Zone”, in effect a localized martial law.

SEC (SWAT) Dropping down on streaming social media jornalist

When the cops were on all three levels the SEK on top started to throw down object from the sleeping space above, this time at lease not trying to throw it at activists or cops below as there was simply nobody below to throw this stuff at. At that time some of those with already destroyed finger prints were stuffing their pockets with jam and margerine and also smearing this stuff on their hands and wrists. This limited a bit hand grabbing by those cops who tried to be more civil this time for a change and were loading the activists onto the cherry pick one by one, with some being carried and some walking on.

An area was set up for processing those arrested outside of the forest on a field with 10 police vans forming a square inside of which people were photographed, finger printed and then given orders to stay out of the area for 24 hours. 2 however from the tree-house were taken to prison for once again some bullshit ridiculous charges.

Once released people who were no longer supposed to be in an area that was shown on the map with that order(Covering the area of the Danger Zone comprising Hambach Forest and the surrounding towns.) hanged around right next to the cops for over an hour waiting for all of their comrades to be released. Group photo was taken with a sense of celebration of continuing the struggle despite the sounds, then drifting from the forest, of being destroyed Paragraph. Numbers that the cops gave us as we stood in line and were being processed were collected and worn with pride.

Post repression foto with some of the objects saved from P11 that included: Megaphone, zines, map of Hambacher forst 12 times its size before RWE mining, and decorations including a dumpster dived sun to be used in future tree houses……

The glow and haze is from the anti-repression margerine we had smeared on our hands to prevent wristst for being grabbed and twisted down in case of resisting walking to be arrested and criminaized for protecting HambacherForest and the Climate.